DATELINE: MOSCOW Aug 26

Russia has not ruled out the prospect of establishing a production facility in Iran in the near future that would make fuel for nuclear power plants, an informed source close to the talks between the parties told Interfax in commenting on the Iranian authorities’ statements.

“To begin with, we must finish the commissioning of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, which will be supplied with Russian fuel. As for the future, the creation of a facility for making fuel in Iran is possible,” he said.

But uranium enrichment in any case will proceed in Russia, he said.

Iranian Atomic Energy Organization head Ali Akbar Salehi said on Thursday that Iran had offered Russia to set up a consortium for the delivery of nuclear fuel to the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant and to other nuclear power plants which will probably be built in Iran. He said the proposal is being studied in Russia.

The physical launch of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant began on August 21. Nuclear fuel is to be loaded into the reactor in September and the energy launch is to be carried out before the end of the year, when the station is connected to the country’s energy grid and starts generating electricity.

The nuclear fuel for the first loading was made by the Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrate Plant, which is part of the TVEL nuclear fuel company. TVEL’s contract with Iran for fuel delivers to Bushehr is intended for ten years.

DATELINE: YEKATERINBURG July 26

Rosenergoatom plans to start up the BN-800 fast-neutron reactor at the Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Plant in September 2013 and expects to begin commercial power production in 2014, the company’s Deputy General Director Oleg Sarayev told Interfax.

“There are no doubts about the launch of the BN-800 from the point of view of fuel supply. We are now planning to launch this reactor, namely to start it up in September 2013,” he said.

Initially, the new power unit at the Beloyarsk NPP was expected to be commissioned in 2012, however, this deadline was postponed due to the sequestered financing of the project in 2008-2009, he said.

“Nevertheless, we have full confidence that start-up will be possible in 2013. Both full capacity and operation at the industrial level are slated for 2014,” Sarayev said.

By now, the reactor construction has been funded by approximately 37-40% of the total investment. The total cost of the BN-800 is estimated at 67 billion rubles.

China has showed interest in the BN-800 project. Currently talks continue under a contract for construction of such reactors in China, and an intergovernmental agreement regarding such a project could be signed before the end of 2010, he added.

The company continues to develop the BN-1200 reactor with a 1.2- gigawatt capacity, Rosenergoatom’s Advisor to the General Director Nikolai Oshkanov said.

The project is due to be completed in 2014 and licensing will take about another two years, he said.

The cost of this project will be comparable to the price of conventional NPPs, he said. Most likely, the Beloyarsk NPP will also serve as a platform for building the BN-1200.

The Beloyarsk NPP is the only power plant in Russia and worldwide that uses a fast-neutron reactor, the BN-600. The plant is currently used as a site for building another analogous reactor, the BN-800, that has a higher capacity.

DATELINE: MOSCOW July 2

Russian state nuclear materials exporter Techsnabexport (Tenex) expects to boost its export order book more than 50% to $30 billion by 2020, the company said in its annual report.

By then, Tenex plans to be meeting at least a quarter of the needs of the world’s nuclear reactors for uranium enrichment services, and to double its presence in the Asia-Pacific market.

Efforts to improve the trade environment for Russian uranium in the key markets need to be sustained for this to be achieved, Tenex said.

The export contracts portfolio for five years in advance exceeded $8 billion in 2009, not including shipments under the megatons-to- megawatts deal, by which Russia ships highly enriched uranium (HEU)

removed from dismantled nuclear warheads to the United States in diluted form suitable for nuclear power pant fuel. The overall portfolio of long-term contracts, including for delivery after 2010, was estimated at $18 billion.

Tenex ships nuclear materials via the [port of St Petersburg, among others. It mostly uses the Northern Shipping Company (RTS: SEMP) and Atlantic Ro-Ro Carriers to ship materials to Europe and the United States.

The company’s logistics partners are Transport Logistics International (U.S.), Nuclear Cargo+Service (Germany), TN Internationale (France) and Uranium Asset Management (UK).

Tuenex said its turnover could rise 11.6% this year to $3.85 billion from $3.45 billion. Europe accounted for $1.5 billion of turnover in 2009, North America – $1 billion and Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) – $500 million.

Tenex’s share of the world market is an estimated 40%.

Tenex said uranium-related sales revenue rose 81.5% in 2009 to 76.346 billion rubles, after it switched to a purely contractual basis for delivery. The company received 30% of its revenue in the form of commission in 2008. Exchange-rate factors also influenced revenue.

At the same time, commercial uranium exports fell 8.8% last year to $2.011 billion because these had jumped the year before, due mainly to a supplementary shipment of materials to U.S. firm Palmco ($116 million in 2008) following an arbitration court ruling.

Shipments under the megatons-megawatts deal grew 8.3% to $886 million in 2009 as the cost of services to dilute the HEU rose. All proceeds from this contract go into the Russian budget.

Net profit rose 150% last year to 14.5 billion rubles and consolidated income grew 90% to 80.3 billion rubles.

Tenex expects quotas to re-export the Russian low-enriched uranium (LEU) via the U.S. to be eased. An anti-dumping duty used to prevent Tenex from signing direct LEU supply contracts with U.S. power companies, and an agreement was reached in 2008 to enable Tenex to raise direct shipments gradually, to 20%.

But the re-export restriction, imposed in the early 1990s, remains in place, and talks to relax this quota are under way, Rosatom told Interfax.

Tenex said also that Russian shipments had been subject to stealth quotas in Europe, but that permanent dialog with EU energy and Euratom had eased this problem for a while.

Tenex could take up more than half the quota it has agreed to for direct LEU shipments to the United States by 2020 by the end of this year or early next year, the company’s chief, Alexei Grigoryev, has told Interfax. Grigoryev has said Tenex had signed $4.3 billion worth of long-term uranium contracts with U.S. companies to date.

Approximately half of all U.S. reactors work on Russian LEU, derived from weapons-grade uranium.

Tenex also said in the annual report that U.S. firm ConverDyn agreed to open U308 and uranium hexafluoride material resource accounts for the Russian company’s Frankfurt-based Internexco subsidiary in 2009.

Internexco, established in 1989, saw record sales revenue and net profit of EUR 375.2 million and EUR 6.7 million, respectively, last year.

Internexco signed a new long-term contract with a European customer to 2020.

Tenex registered the London-based subsidiary Tradewill Limited in June 2009 to promote nuclear goods and services under the Tenex brand and exported by other Rosatom organizations in the world market.

DATELINE: MOSCOW June 9

The Rosatom state corporation plans to hold a new round of talks with Argentina on construction of a nuclear power plant in the next few weeks, Rosatom head Sergei Kirienko told Vesti 24 television.

“In two weeks we are expecting the arrival in Moscow of a big representative delegation led by the prime minister,” Kirienko said.

Rosatom is also in talks with Brazil and Venezuela on construction of nuclear plants in those countries.

Kirienko recalled that Rosatom recently signed an agreement with Vietnam that stipulates Russian technology will be used to build that nation’s first nuclear power plant.

Egypt is also preparing to announce a tender on construction of a nuclear plant in which Russia plans to participate. In addition, Rosatom recently concluded a nuclear plant construction agreement with Turkey.

DATELINE: KYIV June 9

Ukraine received a loan of nearly $2 billion from Russia on Tuesday, a source in the Ukrainian government told Interfax.

The money is most likely intended to fund a joint Russian-Ukrainian project to complete the construction of two power generating units at the Khmelnitsky nuclear power plant, he said.

The source, however, declined to reveal the source of the loan, saying that the funds were transferred to the Ukrainian government’s accounts.

The Ukrainian prime minister’s press secretary Vitaliy Lukyanenko, for his part, has refused to confirm this report.

However, Lukyanenko admitted that Ukraine earlier held negotiations with Russia on a large loan for the Khmelnitsky project.

The press secretary said he did not know whether the money had been provided or not.

The Ukrainian Finance Ministry’s press service said that such a loan had not been granted at the state level, but it could have been provided by Russian banks.

DATELINE: MOSCOW June 7

Russia and India are considering possibly enlarging the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant to eight units, depending on the size of NPP premises.

“Can we build the seventh and eighth units or is there a shortage of land?” Rosatom head Sergei Kiriyenko asked a representative of India’s NPCIL at the Atomexpo 2010 show.

The Indian representative said that research was in progress and further construction would depend on its results. He did not say when the research might be over.

The first two units of the Kudankulam NPP are almost ready, and the construction of the third and fourth units will start soon, Kiriyenko said.

Apart from Kudankulam, Russia and India will build a nuclear power plant in Haripur in West Bengal. That power plant will have six units.

DATELINE: MOSCOW June 7

Russia’s nuclear power agency Rosatom plans to expand its experience in investing in the development of nuclear power overseas and is read to provide a portion of the financing of such projects in Bulgaria and Armenia, the agency’s chairman, Sergei Kirienko, told journalists.

Kirienko said that Russia and Turkey recently reached an agreement for the construction of a nuclear power plant. This project will be unique since Rosatom will not only build the NPP but also invest in it.

The agency will later own and bring it online.

“We have negotiations today with various different countries,” he said, adding: “We are not only offering Armenia the construction of a nuclear station but investing in it,” he added.

Rosatom is still ready to purchase packet in the Belen NPP in Bulgaria, which the government there is ready to sell, Kirienko said.

Rosatom wants to purchase a stake in the project when the Bulgarian authorities again form an investment pool. Germany’s RWE was earlier an investor in the project but the company decided against its involvement.

DATELINE: MOSCOW May 20

Russia is willing to invest about $1 billion in the development of uranium fields in Namibia, said Rosatom chief Sergei Kiriyenko.

“We are prepared to act as a strategic investor in the development of already discovered fields. We are prepared to invest about $1 billion. We have reserved this money,” Kiriyenko said following talks between the Russian and Namibian presidents in Moscow on Thursday.

Large prospected uranium fields in Namibia that could be of interest to Atomredmetzoloto, a 100% Rosatom affiliate, are estimated at several hundreds of thousands of tonnes, he said.

“We are willing to invest in full-scale uranium production, the establishment of an enterprise for its primary processing, and personnel training,” Kiriyenko said.

“We can guarantee that the Russian nuclear industry will buy all this uranium,” Kiriyenko said. “This is beneficial to us, particularly bearing in mind the contracts that we have signed, for instance, with Turkey, whose nuclear power plants we need to supply with fuel for decades,” he said.

Russia can also guarantee that the uranium extracted in Namibia “will be bought at market prices,” he said.

DATELINE: ANKARA May 12

A Russian-Turkish intergovernmental agreement on the joint construction of a nuclear power plant, Akkuyu, with four generating units, was signed in Ankara on Wednesday.

The agreement lists areas of cooperation, including the designing and construction of a nuclear power plant and its infrastructure, the operation of the nuclear power plant, and purchases and sales of electricity to be generated. The accord has been posted on the online database of the Russian government’s regulatory acts.

The two countries will also jointly conduct maintenance and upgrade work, and provide physical protection for the nuclear power plant.

Russia is ready to discuss the construction of nuclear fuel production facilities in Turkey, according to the agreement.

Russia and Turkey will also cooperate in nuclear fuel treatment and radioactive waste disposal, and in decommissioning the nuclear power plant.

Among the areas of cooperation negotiated is nuclear fuel cycle, including the construction and operation of nuclear fuel production capacities in Turkey. But cooperation in nuclear fuel cycle will be regulated by special terms, which have yet to be negotiated.

DATELINE: KYIV May 7

The management of Ukraine’s Nuclear Fuel company late last month approved a plan for the firm to buy a 10% stake in the International Uranium Enrichment Center (IUEC), a Russian-based group whose main purpose is to provide non-nuclear countries with guaranteed access to enriched uranium as fuel for nuclear power plants.

Nuclear Fuel will acquire the stake from Rosatom, regulator of Russia’s nuclear industry, the Ukrainian state-owned company said in a statement posted on its website.

Earlier, IUEC General Director Alexei Lebedev said Ukraine would buy a 10% stake in the center for $100,000.

In November 2008, the Ukrainian government approved a draft agreement with Russia and Kazakhstan, the countries that have set up the IUEC, on participation in the IUEC. The Russian and Kazakh governments approved Ukraine’s plan to join the IUEC in February 2009 and December 2009 respectively.

Armenia is also seeking to join the IUEC and is involved in accession formalities.

The IUEC, which will also manage a guarantee reserve of low-enriched uranium, the so-called fuel bank, is based at the Angarsk Electrolytic Chemical Combine in Angarsk, Siberia.